Sallie Mae Bank is a financial institution affiliated with Sallie Mae, the company widely known for its student loan business. The SLM Corporation (the formal name for Sallie Mae) is a publicly traded (NASDAQ: SLM) education finance corporation with a plethora of divisions and subsidiaries that offer an array of debt management services and business products. Sallie Mae Bank is a recent venture by the company into the retail banking space.

The bank offers three different types of savings products on its personal banking side, including Money Market and savings accounts, and Certificates of Deposit (CDs). DepositAccounts.com has featured Sallie Mae’s Money Market account in the past for its competitive rate offering, and it is still usually one of the top offerings in the country. The MMA comes with check writing capabilities and has no minimum balance requirement, no monthly fees, and no tiered interest rates. The savings account offering is very similar, having no monthly fees or minimum balance requirements, as well as a comparable interest rate. The main difference between Sallie Mae’s Money Market and savings account is that the savings account offers a 10% annual match on Upromise rewards, whereas the Money Market account comes with check writing but no rewards. The bank’s CDs are available in 12-, 36-, and 60-month term lengths and come with fixed rates and minimum initial deposit requirements. Sallie Mae Bank also makes undergraduate and graduate student loans available, as well as family loans for kids in K-12 grades.

Sallie Mae Bank online banking provides the only way for customers to access their deposit accounts, as the bank has no physical branches. The web-based platform gives account holders the ability to perform functions like direct deposit, bill pay, and funds transfers, but because the bank doesn’t offer a checking account to the public, customers should be careful to avoid going over the six transactions per month limit.

Sallie Mae Bank is a subsidiary of the SLM Corporation, which was created in 1972 as a government-partnered mutual loan entity. In 2004, the company permanent severed ties with the U.S. government and became a private sector company. A year later, in 2005, the bank was started in order to complement its loan business. In the summer of 2013, Sallie Mae announced that it was going to divide its education loan management business from its banking business in order to offer more consumer lending products on its banking side. Sallie Mae Bank is currently headquartered in Murray, Utah, and maintains it customers’ deposit accounts through its online banking system.

Sallie Mae Bank - No Problems / No Worries

I have been with Sallie Mae Bank for over two yeas now. I have had no problems with their bank, or policies. I have used them for Savings & CD's, and am currently thinking about opening up a Money Market Account. On the rare occasion when I phoned their customer service I was taken care quickly & politely.

Review of Sallie Mae online banking

I have had an online only high-yield savings account with Sallie Mae for probably about 6 years. I opened the account initially because I didn't need to have a minimum deposit to start earning interest, but mainly because the interest rates were so high. The interest rate is .90%, which was higher than any other account I had found while doing research. I also don't get charged for any transfers in or out, which a lot of other banks do. When I initiate a transfer from another account to this account, it's processed quickly which makes it easy to keep track of exactly how much I have. I can also link the account to my Upromise account, which makes it easier to transfer my earnings from Upromise (although I don't use that service much).

Get Up To Speed

Terribly unsophisticated Web presence. Pedestrian design and functionality. Counterintuitive rather than user-friendly. I bookmarked the banking page, when I clicked on the bookmark, it went to the student loans page. I deleted the banking bookmark, then reinstated it. Same thing. When clicked, it went to the student loans page. It's hard to even find the banking page by Googling Sallie Mae.

Was Fine Until I Wanted To Close The Account

I had no problems with my banking account as far as an online savings account. However, I decided to move to a local bank where I could make cash deposits and requested Sallie Mae close my account.

I am on my 4th request. At first they said they did not recognize the new bank as a linked account to make any post closure transfer (even though it is verified). So I requested they use the bank that has been linked since I opened my account with Sallie Mae.

Now they are no longer responding to my requests at all.

I now have to figure out who to escalate this to; I have no need for this account. It has a zero balance and as a long term customer, I am appalled by the lack of customer service I have received for this one, simple request.